[RD] Trans people in sport

[Arwon]

I think we should make a rule that you can't post about women's sport unless you actually watch and attend women's sport

 

[Arwon]

Hell even just a cursory knowledge of sport at all would help deal with a lot of the sillier terfposting about the relative size of some late transitioned women.

Like for example the understanding that in basketball being the tallest usually just puts you in a niche centre/1 role. Or that in a lot of other sports, being the biggest places you in similarly defined roles, while smaller players fill other roles. If you're big you can get pigeonholed in different sports as a front rower, a centre/1, a central defender or goalkeeper, a ruck. Larger size certainly isn't a pure advantage in many team sports. There's not many where the best player is the biggest.

 

[sophie]

The annoying thing here is that there really is very little “actual sports” to discuss in this matter. The entire “debate,” such as it is, is precisely what just played out above: men who do not care or think at all about women’s sports 99.99999% of the time, deciding they care very deeply all of a sudden for some reason, making up a bunch of arguments in their head for why their important concerns matter, and when confronted with the unreality of those concerns, responding that they don’t actually care very much about that mitigating context and proceeding as if they never heard any of it.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

There's not many where the best player is the biggest.

There are outliers and specialist roles where size/strength is not an advantage, but for the majority of sports it absolutely is.

I was going to suggest Horse Racing.. but even then, it is rare for jockeys to be female. I believe that to be an open sport?

 

[NovaKart]

Does testosterone improve performance in sports?

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Does testosterone improve performance in sports?

It is a banned performance enhancing drug.

 

[Arwon]

There are outliers and specialist roles where size/strength is not an advantage, but for the majority of sports it absolutely is.

Eh, not really and not linearly. There's a point of diminishing returns and a point where it can start to become counterproductive. Most team sport also values speed, coordination, agility, spatial awareness and play reading, and those are attributes that are either irrelevant to, or in direct conflict with raw size.

Whether it's the giant front rower rumbling along from tackle to tackle but unable to contain a fleet footed winger, a relatively unskilled ruck having to handball to teammates because they are unable to effectively make difficult kicks the way midfielders can, or a gangly fast bowler looking ridiculous when standing at bat with their overly long limbs, there's so many situations where it's not size that's key.

 

[Arwon]

There are definitely women jockeys, a woman rider recently won the Melbourne Cup. But there's not that many because culture more or less. But also horse racing is stupid and evil, more to the point, so who cares.

 

[sophie]

Does testosterone improve performance in sports?

What does this sentence even mean? Does brain improve life?

 

[Lexicus]

So like can someone explain why the default normal position on this is not just:
let people play whatever sports they want, and the elite (like top 0.0001% in the world) athletes who cry and whine about being entitled to win can suck it? Like I believe in the case of the trans swimmer the one woman was crying about coming in 17th instead of 16th or something? Who the hell cares? How is this not obviously a pretext for transphobic psychos to fudge with people?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Eh, that context matters to you, I only saw the image, which is about a trans athlete. While it may help you to imagine how to combat enemies you form in your mind, it will help even more to consider whether that is on point when you project it to a real other person who lives outside your mind; forming a realistic view about them is a little more complicated.

The realistic view that you've just posted anti trans rhetoric in an attempt to advocate for exactly that and yet you seem to be in absolute denial of doing this

 

[Cloud_Strife]

So like can someone explain why the default normal position on this is not just:
let people play whatever sports they want, and the elite (like top 0.0001% in the world) athletes who cry and whine about being entitled to win can suck it?

You know why

 

[Lexicus]

You know why

I edited my post! I EDITED IT!!!!

 

[Arwon]

So like can someone explain why the default normal position on this is not just:
let people play whatever sports they want, and the elite (like top 0.0001% in the world) athletes who cry and whine about being entitled to win can suck it? Like I believe in the case of the trans swimmer the one woman was crying about coming in 17th instead of 16th or something? Who the hell cares? How is this not obviously a pretext for transphobic psychos to fudge with people?

It is. At community level, it's already happening just fine. Trans players are in sport already.

At a personal level, I've played mixed social/community sport, my sister has played against trans players, ordinary people manage fair sport play perfectly well

 

[AmazonQueen]

It is a banned performance enhancing drug.

Testosterone is a naturally occurring hormone naturally produced by both men and womens bodies. Drugs that increase its production are banned, not testosterone itself.
Although men tend to produce more testosterone than women the amount produced varies from person to person.

 

[Gorbles]

For a "cis male" (what a terrible term, but sadly I guess people will keep using it without caring what the group it presents thinks of it )

As a cis man, I have absolutely zero issue with the Latin prefix being used as a qualifier when relevant (which it often is in discussions like these). I don't walk into my water polo training and go HELLO FELLOW CIS MEN, though, because, contextually, that'd be silly. But I give full permission for people to use it, wherever they may

 

[EgonSpengler]

Not strictly related to trans athletes, but the answer to the question "Why aren't there more women & girls in [sport N]?" is "Because they're pushed out of it from a young age" every time. I know nothing about horse racing, but if that is an overwhelmingly male field of competition, I'd bet the $10 I have in my wallet that it's not because women aren't good at it, or because they don't enjoy it; it's because they're guided and/or pushed into styles or competitions that have been gendered for girls, from whatever age people start riding horses.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Eh, not really and not linearly. There's a point of diminishing returns and a point where it can start to become counterproductive. Most team sport also values speed, coordination, agility, spatial awareness and play reading, and those are attributes that are either irrelevant to, or in direct conflict with raw size.

Whether it's the giant front rower rumbling along from tackle to tackle but unable to contain a fleet footed winger, a relatively unskilled ruck having to handball to teammates because they are unable to effectively make difficult kicks the way midfielders can, or a gangly fast bowler looking ridiculous when standing at bat with their overly long limbs, there's so many situations where it's not size that's key.

"Men are physically stronger than women, who have, on average, less total muscle mass, both in absolute terms and relative to total body mass. The greater muscle mass of men is the result of testosterone-induced muscular hypertrophy. Men also have denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments."*

These are all advantageous in almost every sport discipline. I can only think of rowing/sailing as sports where a female is picked every time.. because they are not actually competing physically.

So of course "biggest" isn't best, but that really is narrowing down the concept to the point its worthless.

 

[Arwon]

Not strictly related to trans athletes, but the answer to the question "Why aren't there more women & girls in [sport N]?" is "Because they're pushed out of it from a young age" every time. I know nothing about horse racing, but if that is an overwhelmingly male field of competition, I'd bet the $10 I have in my wallet that it's not because women aren't good at it, or because they don't enjoy it; it's because they're guided and/or pushed into styles or competitions that have been gendered for girls, from whatever age people start riding horses.

A good example of this is Olympic shooting and chess. Both events where there's clearly no sex advantage, but they have women's divisions specifically to address participation.

(Shooting also made the switch immediately after a woman did win an Olympic gold in the open events so this was probably also about stopping women from beating men, but something can be good from one angle and bad from another)

 

[Kyriakos]

As a cis man, I have absolutely zero issue with the Latin prefix being used as a qualifier when relevant (which it often is in discussions like these). I don't walk into my water polo training and go HELLO FELLOW CIS MEN, though, because, contextually, that'd be silly. But I give full permission for people to use it, wherever they may

I don't like it. I'd prefer something which doesn't owe its existence to polemics, and it sounds burdened with implications I don't accept. I'd rather be referred to as a person, which is neutral instead of part of a power-dynamic.